Scottish Challenge

The Borders are really quite beautiful. One of the major positives from last season was how me and Jen travelled to places we never would have, had I been playing on the DP World Tour. We visited Kolkata, revisited the wonderful Fancourt down in George and stayed at the Schloss Roxburghe for the Scottish Challenge. So we were pleased to be going back this year to Kelso with the dogs in tow. There was a different sensation in the air this time around however compared to 2025…

“I hear a sound, a sound above my head. Distant sound of thunder, moving out on the moor.”

Upon reflection, golf in 2025 for me was soaked with tension. It was revealed to me as early as my opening hole on Thursday this week where I hit a good drive and a controlled nine iron to ten foot, and although I missed the putt, it was a solid attempt. How different my mentality is now from where it was a year ago when I made a nervous opening bogey on the same hole. Interestingly perhaps, I would say my form last year was as good as it has been for much of this year, but the sheer uncertainty surrounding my golf made it hard for that form to peer through and genuinely shine. There was little about my golf this week that shone. Frankly I was pretty poor and to continue with the musical theme it looked at one point like The Connells ‘74-’75 was going to be the subtitle to this article. (Another good song)

Statistics For The Week:

F.I.R - 19/28 (67.87%)

G.I.R - 26/36 (72.22%)

Putts Per Round - 28.5

Up And Down - 10/14 (71.43%)

Obviously given the absence of the hard working stat-collectors, it was down to me to come up with these incredibly basic numbers. They really don’t tell you or me much, and ordinarily they are actually pretty good numbers. I suppose this is mostly a reflection of the course difficulty, in that if I were to have these numbers after two rounds on the DP World Tour I would almost certainly be out competing today instead of being at home. In spite of the relative ease with which you could get around the Roxburghe under par, I have to say how impressive I thought the scoring was. Two rounds of 61 (-10) were shot over the first two days, and Christofer Blomstrand’s on Friday was serious golf. At no point in my career do I think I would have or could have shot 61 in those conditions on Friday, when the wind blew 20 MPH all afternoon. This gave me pause over dinner while sipping on an old fashioned: what stops some of these guys from not being on the DP World Tour and beyond? The standard out on the HotelPlanner Tour is genuinely strong, and I am not convinced I could spend a whole season out there at this point and qualify for the main tour via the top 15. The biggest difference between the two tours in my opinion is the environment and atmosphere, and the impact that can have on a players mentality probably explains away much of my confusion. It’s something I touched on in the podcast two weeks ago with regards to Lucas Herbert, how his from and scoring on LIV has been sensational and that the difference in his Sunday at Royal Birkdale compared to his recent wins on LIV almost certainly reflects the difference in intensity between events. This sounds obvious, but the point is to acknowledge that what’s so incredible about the Scheffler’s and McIlroy’s of the world isn’t just their skill, as we can see there is great skill on show everywhere, rather it’s their ability to do it in the most intense environments. There’s a toughness in it that’s hard to appreciate, but is palpable if you’ve been in that arena.

My Game

I mentioned above how poor I was. I struggled to get bat on ball in the correct way. It was a battle on the range all week and it remained that way on the course too. I always feel that when I’m striking the ball my best, I have adequate separation between my arms and body. They talk to each other while doing their own thing. It’s like a marriage after thirty years, I imagine. Two days of golf was enough for me to see where I was going wrong and I now have a few days to work on it before teeing it up in Denmark, next week. The one positive was my putting. I have spent time in recent weeks using a straight back - straight through, 90 degree rail, but only on the through stroke. This, in an attempt to get me used to feeling what a square face to straight path feels like. I noticed in Scotland my start line control was improved from my last run of golf, when I was struggling predominantly with pulls. I also changed my routine and removed any practice strokes, instead focusing more on visualising the read and tempo of stroke, counting (in my mind) a metronome of around 100 beats per minute. Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie, for example. (A less good song)

Other News

LIV Golf has secured an investor! Here are Ian Poulter’s thoughts: “Look, it’s amazing news. Two weeks ago we didn’t have it there. Right now it’s right there in place. I think it’s exceptional someone believes in the product.” So do I, Ian. Reports suggest a slimmed down version of LIV is on the cards for 2027, where the schedule will reduce from fourteen events to ten. This brings the whole thing more in line with where it always should have been, whereby it attempts to replace the former WGC’s. Of course, ten events are still too many for the PGA Tour and even the DP World Tour arguably, to fully accommodate LIV, but at least directionally it is the correct move. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here, but as a concept LIV is not yet dead and in fact if compromises are willing to be made on all sides, with LIV one day having a six to eight event schedule, then I think it’s not unforeseeable that the league could survive beyond 2027, and maybe even be incorporated in some way into professional golf more readily. That still feels a stretch, mind.

The Chipping Forecast

As mentioned on a Substack note the other day, these pages are set to expand and incorporate Andrew and Iain, becoming the place where we all write articles and more… We are looking into adding a bonus podcast which will hopefully contain video(!) and it’ll only be available to paid subscribers on here. As I said on that note, those of you who are already paid subscribers wont’t have to do anything. We are all thrilled to see how well the podcast is doing and are determined to keep a good thing going, and we think Substack is one place that can help us grow.

Thanks as always and I’m excited for what’s to come,

Eddie.